Taylor, Christi, and Karen have become fast friends. They met just four months ago at a rehabilitation center for teens with drug and alcohol problems. What follows are compelling accounts — from three girls with one shocking thing in common: pasts filled with pain, drugs, and alcohol. Here, in their own words, are their stories....

TAYLOR'S STORY

As far back as I can remember, my parents never seemed to be around. Once, I entered a very important ballet contest. My nanny took me. I was really nervous. Anyway, my turn came to dance and I did a great job. Well, I came in second place, and when I went to receive my award, the only person who cheered for me in the audience was my nanny. My parents were on vacation at that time and didn't even remember that I had the contest. They never even called me that night. I remember that incident really well.

Most kids would love to come from a wealthy family. You see, I was an only child, and since my parents weren't around that much, they would always leave me with lots of money.

On my 16th birthday, my parents had a brand-new BMW convertible waiting for me out on the driveway. They weren't there, of course, but they did phone me from Hawaii to wish me happy birthday. That's when things started getting really bad.

I turned 16 and I could do what I wanted. I started going to clubs almost every night. I never had a curfew, so I stayed out till the clubs closed. I would go with my friends to clubs where you had to be at least 21 years old to get in. No problem. I would show the bouncer a fake ID that I had. At first, I hated the taste. But because everyone else was into it, I pretended to enjoy it. I would get drunker and drunker and I would eventually end up passing out in the bathroom at the club or in the back of my car.

In the beginning, I would have a really hard time getting up for school in the mornings, what with hangovers and late nights. But I found that if I drank alcohol with a hangover, I would get buzzed again and I wouldn't feel the pounding headache.

My teachers never knew that I had been drinking. I was always an okay student. I got B's and C's so they always left me alone. I don't know how I managed to keep my grades up. I guess I was just lucky. And, of course, my parents never found out because they were never around. As for my nanny, she realized I was getting older, and didn't need her as much. She just ended up cleaning up my room, making my meals, and that kind of thing. She pretty much left me alone.

There was no one around to tell me what to do. My parents would leave money for me on the dining room table before they left in the mornings, and they would leave an envelope full of money in their bedroom for me when they went on vacations or business trips. I had no parents telling me what to do, no curfew, no restrictions. Life seemed great.

GETTING AWAY WITH A LOT

Then one night everything changed. Now I realize it was the best thing that could have happened to me. But then, well, I really did want to die.

It started out like any other night out. I was at my favorite club with some girlfriends. I had been drinking pretty heavily. It was about 2:30 in the morning when I realized I had run out of money. Since I was already drunk, I didn't feel like driving home, getting some more money, and coming back. So I just called it a night and left. I got in my car and I was driving home.

I thought I was being extra careful by driving about 45 miles on the freeway, and the next thing, I see bright, flashing lights pull up behind me. I got really scared. I had never been pulled over by the cops before. I slowly pulled my car to the side of the road. The cops pulled up behind me. I quickly grabbed some gum from my purse and started chewing on it like crazy. I heard if you chewed gum, cops couldn't smell the alcohol on your breath.

I rolled down my window as the cop came up to me. "Do you realize you have been swerving all over the lane?" he asked me. I told me I didn't think I was. I said I was driving slowly and being extra careful. He looked at my driver's license and said, "Aren't you a little young to be out so late on a school night?" I had to think of something quick, so I told him my mom was sick in the hospital and I had spent all night there visiting her.

At the time, I thought that was the greatest lie I had told anyone. But now, I realize how stupid it must have sounded.

The cop asked me to step out of the car. I did, very slowly, not wanting him to see that I could barely stand straight. He knew. He knew straight away that I had been drinking. The cop gave me a bunch of tests to do, such as walking with one foot in front of the other in a straight line, and standing with one foot raised slightly off the ground. I failed every test. I was too drunk to keep my balance. They then did a breathalyzer test on me. I was declared legally drunk, with an alcohol level of 0.16 (The legal tolerated level is 0.08).

MY PARENTS' DECISION

My car was towed and I was taken in the police car to the police station. Because I am a minor, my parents were called in. Unfortunately, they had just come back from a trip, so they were at home. I was put in a cell with three other people. I had a pounding headache, I felt really sick, and I started to cry. I just wanted my parents to come and fetch me and take me home.

Finally my parents showed up. Instead of them feeling sorry for me and comforting me like I had expected, they started to yell at me in front of everyone in the police station. When the police told my parents what had happened, they were outraged. They wanted to know if I had ever driven drunk before. I tried to lie, but I felt so sick I didn't care anymore. I just wanted to get into my own bed and sleep forever.

I told them I had driven drunk before. I didn't tell them how many times, though. They started questioning me about my partying and my friends. I was very vague with them and I didn't really give them straight answers. But they knew that I was lying.

Eventually, they let me out of the holding tank and drove me home. At home, they confronted me and yelled at me for the longest time. They searched my room and found a couple of bottles of alcohol hidden in my closet. I started to yell back at them. I told them I needed to drink. That's when my parents knew I had a problem.

The next morning my parents told me they had spoken to my teachers in school and a couple of my friends' parents whom they knew. They were very upset to find out I had been acting "differently" for a long time, according to my schoolteachers. And a couple of my friends ratted on me so that they would look good. They pretty much told my parents everything.

My parents were very calm. It was obvious my mom had been up all night crying. Her eyes were all red and swollen. They told me they were very disappointed in themselves for not having seen what was going on. They blamed themselves for the problems I was having. And they told me they had only one solution. I was to go through rehab and they would go through family counseling.

I was outraged. I yelled at them. I begged them. I pleaded with them. But they never listened. They had gotten a list of rehab centers from the police station I was at the night before, and that night, they drove me to one.

My New Home

I was put into this really ugly room with another girl. I was sitting on a bed screaming and crying and yelling at the top of my lungs. I didn't care who heard me, until the girl turned over in her bed, looked at me, and said, "You can scream all you want. You're here for a long, long time." That was the first time I met Christi.

CHRISTI'S STORY

My father left us when I was 12 years old. I don't remember much about him other than he was never around and was never really nice to me. My mother was left to support all four of us by herself, which meant she worked long hours, six days a week, while I looked after my sister and my little brother.

I never had many friends in school. I was very ashamed of my life. We were very poor, and we lived in this tiny two-bedroom apartment right next to this huge factory where my mom worked. I never had any privacy. I just kind of kept to myself. I was known as the quiet kid in school.

I was really tired of looking after my little sister and brother. Maybe I was being selfish, but I wanted some time that was my own. I wanted to go to parties on the weekends like all the other girls at my school.

A NEW LIGHT

The way I got mixed up with drugs seemed to happen overnight. One day I was the quiet girl in school, the next I was Ms. Popularity. It began when I overheard two girls talking in the locker room one day. They were talking about how good it felt when they used drugs, and how they were never concerned about what was happening around them. I always wanted to feel like that. I also wanted to feel good and not have to worry about how hard my mom was working, or how I had to look after my brother and sister. They mentioned the name of a certain pill. I know it was a pill because I saw them each take one.

I worked up the nerve and went over to them. At first, when I asked them about the pills they were taking, they pretended they didn't know what I was talking about. But they could see how desperate I was, so they finally gave me one. Before I took it, they made me promise not to tell anyone they had them.

I took the pill. Nothing happened. I didn't know what to expect. I finished getting dressed, grabbed my books, and started walking to my next class. That's when it kicked in. It was as if a new light was shining down on me. I started to tingle all over. Objects and people came rushing in on me. I started to feel really happy. I wanted to hug everyone. I started talking, babbling I think is a better word, to students I'd never talked to before. They started talking back. I felt great.

The rest of the day at school was a blur. I remember being very hyper in class, making jokes and talking to the people who sat around me. In my last class of the day, a girl I sat next to invited me to a party that weekend at her friend's house. I was so happy. My first real party. I couldn't wait. I almost skipped home from school. I grabbed my brother and sister and kissed them. They just looked at me strangely. I was already in bed by the time my mom came home from work. I was still feeling pretty good. I didn't want the feeling to end.

I Couldn't Get Enough

The next morning, when I woke up, I felt like I had the flu. My body ached, my head felt like it was going to burst, and my eyes were red and dry. I got ready for school, mumbled some sort of good-bye to my mom, and walked to school. I felt terrible. I barely got through my first two classes. I went to gym class and met the two girls that had given me the pill the day before. I told them that I felt great the day before, but that now I felt like I had the flu. The girls looked at me and laughed. "You're not getting sick," one girl said. "You're just coming down from your high." I wanted to know how I could feel like I did before. The other girl slipped me a pill. "Take this," she said. I swallowed the pill and waited for everything to feel wonderful and happy again. One of the girls slipped me a piece of paper with a guy's name and phone number on it. "He has tons more of these," she said.

Once again, I started feeling really good. I loved the feeling. The day went by in a rush. After school, I ran straight home to call the guy. He was really nice. He told me he was going to the party this weekend and that he'd give me a week's supply of the pills. But he told me it would cost $80. That was more money than I had. More than I could afford. When I told him this, he said that was the deal. I was desperate. I told him I would do anything. He told me that he would think about how I could repay him and he'd get back to me at the party.

It's Too Late Now

I couldn't wait for the party. My mom was so happy that I was going to a party that she said she'd watch my brother and sister.

Everyone from school was there. I recognized faces but I didn't know any names. I wandered around, trying to look like I was having fun, but wishing I had never shown up. Just as I was about to leave, I saw the two girls from gym class. They seemed pleased to see me. They introduced me to the guy who I had talked to on the phone.

I was so relieved to see him there. I wanted a pill so badly. He took me by the hand and walked me outside. He didn't say a word. He just looked around very quickly, then pulled out a little plastic bag filled with pills from his pocket and asked if it was what I was looking for.

I wanted to grab the bag and just swallow a pill right then and there. But there was the matter of paying for them. He leaned over told me he knew of a "sales position" where I could make enough money to buy as many little pills as I wanted. That didn't sound too bad, so I gladly offered to take the job. All I needed to do was sell a couple of pills around school to other students. It sounded simple enough. He told me when to meet him each week, where he would give me the pills and I could give him the money and he'd give me all the pills I needed for myself.

It sounded like a good plan. But he warned me about a few things. "If you are caught, you don't know who I am," he said. "And you have to sell all the pills I give you or you don't get any for yourself."

The rules sounded okay. But I had one more question. "What if I change my mind and I don't want to sell anymore?" I asked. "It's too late now to change your mind," he said, and walked away, leaving me with my bag of pills.

Feeling Good

Each pill made me feel good for about six hours, and when I started to feel like I was coming down, I'd take another one. I was feeling good all the time. It didn't take long before I was selling pills to other students as if I had been doing it all my life.

I became popular with a lot of the kids at school. It seemed like everyone knew my name. When I got home from school, the telephone rang nonstop. My sister and brother didn't care. All they knew was that I wasn't looking over them like I did before. And my mom was really happy I had made friends at school. She never knew I was on drugs, and even if she had suspected, she wasn't at home long enough during the week to notice anything strange going on. I needed the little pill all the time now. I was so happy all the time. My grades were dropping and a few teachers pulled me aside to find out if everything was okay. I told them I had to work after school to bring in extra money for the family (most knew about my living situation) and it was taking time away from my studying. But I promised them I would try harder.

Life seemed great. I called the pill my "magic friend." I sold more than enough pills during the week to earn my own pills and extra spending money. I eventually ran out of closet space with all the new clothes I had bought. So I started buying my sister and brother clothes and toys, and then my mom some nice stuff. They were all so pleased. When my mom asked where I was getting all the money, I told her I had taken a paying job at school tutoring other students. I told her I was making great money. She didn't question me again.

The guy who was supplying me with the stuff (I started calling him my "boss") suggested one day that I leave the school grounds to sell some of the pills. I thought he was crazy but I tried what he said. During lunch breaks, I left the school and walked about three blocks to a very busy shopping area. A lot of the kids went there for lunch during school, or to shop there in the afternoons. Suddenly I didn't think my boss was so crazy. Here were tons of kids who I could sell the stuff to.

Every day for about three weeks, I stood in my little corner in this shopping area and sold the stuff. I was a hit. One day, an older guy, he looked about 30 years old, came up to me. He told me he had heard that I was selling some good stuff and wanted to know if I had any to sell him. I gladly showed him what I had. I was thinking, Here's an older guy, he probably has money. He'll buy a whole lot of stuff.
I gave him his pills and he gave me his money. Then, suddenly, before I even realized what was happening, he had handcuffs on me. This guy turned out to be a cop and I was getting busted!

I was thrown into his car and taken to a police station where I was put in a "holding tank" until my mom could come get me. She was so angry at me. She told me I would never be accepted back into her house until I got some help. I didn't care. I just wanted another pill. I was starting to feel very sick and I had an awful headache. I started screaming for my pills (the cop had taken them away from me when he arrested me), but no one was listening.

I was dragged to a police car and ended up at what looked like a prison, but turned out to be a rehabilitation center. I was carried inside by a couple of huge guys. I didn't give them an easy time. I was kicking and screaming and struggling so hard. But they didn't even seem to notice. They stuck me in a room with a bed and some other furniture. It was the ugliest room I had ever seen. The windows had bars on them.

I wanted to kill myself. I had never seen a rehab center, let alone stayed in one. And the worst thing of all is that I wanted a pill so badly. I would have done anything for one. I started pounding on the door and the windows. I was the only one in that room. I was all by myself. Until one night, two weeks later, when Taylor arrived.

KAREN'S STORY

Boring. That's how I would have described my life. Plain and uninteresting. You know, the good kid from the good family who lives in a little white house with a little picket fence and all the rest of that stuff. That was my life exactly. My older brother, my younger sister, my mom and dad, and me. We all lived in this boring white house in this boring little suburb, where we all did our own boring little things.

I had had enough. My friends were just the same as me. I wanted to do something different. I wanted to hang out just once with the "rough" crowd at school. One day, I started talking to a girl (Melissa) who sat next to me in English class. She was from the "bad" crowd. She seemed really nice, though, and we hit it off really well. She invited me to join her and some of her friends for lunch that day.

As soon as I got out of my last class, I ran to the parking lot where the "bad" crowd always used to hang out. My new friend saw me and called me over. She started introducing me to the people in her group. They didn't really pay much attention to me. I mean, they saw me as this good little girl. I made a promise to myself that I would prove them wrong. We went to a fast-food hangout near the school, and we all just sat there talking. My friend told everyone how bored I was with my life, and how I was looking for some excitement. The guy next to me laughed. "You don't know what excitement is," he said. "You couldn't handle it." "Try me," I said. And they did. They told me to join them that night near the school. That night I lied to my parents and told them I was going to the library to study. I then went over to the schoolyard where the gang told me they would meet me. They were already there waiting for me. Everyone was drinking and smoking.

One guy handed me a plastic cup filled with some liquid. He told me to drink it. I took a sip. It was the most awful-tasting stuff I had ever tasted. But I pretended that I enjoyed it and took another sip. Melissa came over to me and whispered in my ear that if I drank the whole thing at once, it wouldn't taste so bad. I took a deep breath and swallowed all of it quickly. I could feel it burning my throat and my stomach. But I just smiled. I was doing okay. After awhile, my fingertips began to tingle and I started feeling really light-headed. It was a weird feeling. A guy came over and handed me a cigarette. Except it wasn't really a cigarette. Its end was twisted into a point and it had a very sweet smell. He handed it to me and I pretended to know what I was doing by sticking it in my mouth and taking a deep breath. I immediately started to choke. I couldn't breathe. My lungs were on fire. I felt like I was going to throw up.

Everyone started laughing at me. One guy came up and offered me another drink, which I gladly accepted and gulped down. Melissa came over to me and told me what I had done wrong. She then showed me how to smoke the "joint." I tried again, and this time it went down a lot easier. I started to laugh and I couldn't stop. My whole body was tingling, my head was spinning, and everything seemed really funny. I had never felt like this before. I was a great feeling. I remember walking home, laughing at everything and talking to myself. I finally got home and I realized it must have been late because all the lights in the house were out except for the living room light. That meant my parents were up and they were waiting for me.

I opened the front door, and ran upstairs to the bathroom and locked myself in there. My parents knocked on the door. I called out that I fell asleep at the library because I was feeling really sick. They started sounding more concerned. I told them I was okay, but that I felt kind of sick. They believed me and went to bed. It wasn't really a lie because I really did feel sick. I sat on the bathroom floor for a while, and then I went to bed and passed out with my clothes on. The alarm woke me up. The sound of the beeping made my head throb like it had never throbbed before. I shut off the alarm and just lay there. The sun was hurting my eyes. My mouth was dry and my throat felt sore and scratchy. My head felt like it weighed a ton. I had to get up or I was going to be late for school. I didn't want my parents to think anything was strange.

I managed to get ready for school and avoid my parents before I left the house. I walked really slowly to school. I barely made it through the day. In English class, I saw Melissa and she just had to take one look at me to know how I was feeling. She leaned over to me and told me she would give me some medication to take the pain away. At this point, I would have taken anything to get rid of how I was feeling.

After class, she and I walked to the girl's bathroom. She pulled out a small plastic container from her purse. She opened it and there were tons of pills of different colors and sizes. I asked what they were. She told me she them her "fixer-uppers" for days when she was feeling sick. She gave me two different pills.

I don't remember quite when the feeling hit me. But in one of my classes I began to feel like I was sitting higher than everyone else, kind of looking down on them. My head felt very light. I didn't feel sick anymore. I floated through school all day, and all the way home. My mom was home when I got in. I floated past her to my bedroom. She called after me. I told her I had homework to do. I don't know how long I fell asleep. When I woke up it was dark outside. I had been zoning out on my bed for hours.

I was starting to feel sick again. But this time it was worse. My head was banging, my stomach was hurting, my body was aching. Then my mom knocked on my door. "There's someone here to see you."

I got up and walked to the door. It was Melissa. She told me that everyone would be meeting in the same place as the night before and wondered if I would be there. She told me that she would give me more pills to feel better.

I ran back inside, grabbed a ,and told my parents I was going to the library again. The were really mad at me. We arrived in the school parking lot. Melissa gave me a couple of pills, which I swallowed down with some disgusting-tasting liquid some guy had in a cup. It turns out it was vodka.

Sometime later, I remember waking up under a tree in the school parking lot. It was very dark out and no one was around. I got up and a couple of pills rolled out of my lap. I picked them up and swallowed them with an almost empty bottle of some alcohol. I waited until I felt that floating feeling and then I started to walk home.

Of course, my parents were waiting up for me. When I got in the front door, my parents came charging out of the living room.

They started yelling at me. I didn't care. I was feeling so good. I hadn't realized that I still had the bottle in my hand. My father grabbed the bottle, looked at it, and handed it over to my mom.

I started to laugh. They started yelling about things, like how I must be hanging out with the wrong crowd, and that they thought I knew about the consequences of using alcohol and drugs.

They sent me to my room, telling me they would have a serious talk with me in the morning when I had sobered up. The next morning I felt awful. I just lay in bed until my parents came into my room and sat on my bed. They told me they were very disappointed in me. I didn't care. I just wanted them to get out of my room.

I didn't go home after school that day. I stayed with Melissa and her friends. I was drunk and high. I slept over at Melissa's that night. Her parents are divorced and her mom came home drunk with some guy she picked up in a bar. She didn't even say anything to me. I was so happy. I made up my mind to stay at Melissa's for a very long time. I didn't care what my parents were doing. Just as long as they stayed out of my life, I was happy.

FINALLY ARRESTED

I didn't go home for a week. And I didn't go to school for a week. Melissa and I just stayed at her place, went out to parties, and went out for food. It was during a party that a couple of police cars showed up. They had everyone cornered. They busted a few of the older guys because they were the ones who had bought the alcohol for the minors at the party.

And they arrested me. My parents had put out a search warrant for me. They put me in the back of the police car and drove me home. My parents were so happy to see me. I was thinking that they missed me so much that they would let me do as I pleased. But then the next morning three strange guys picked me up and put me in the back of a van. I was screaming and yelling for my parents to help me. I thought I was being kidnapped. But my parents knew the guys. In fact, they had called them to let them know I was home. I was being driven to a rehabilitation center. I didn't argue. I didn't say a word. I felt sick, and I just wanted to be left alone. I was put into a strange room with bars on the windows, three beds, and some wooden furniture.

I walked into the room and stretched out on one of the beds. I was there for a while when I heard two girls come into the room. They were laughing. It was the first time I met Taylor and Christi.

The three girls have become best friends. They go to group therapy sessions together, eat together, and share a room together. And it's together that they've learned to deal with their problems with alcohol and drugs.

"I've learned to see what caused my alcohol problem," Taylor says. "I didn't think I was getting enough attention from my parents. All I wanted was for them to love me and notice me, which they never seemed to do."

Taylor's parents now attend counseling sessions with her to help them work better together as a family. "It wasn't easy at first," Taylor claims, "but they eventually saw what they were doing had affected me and they're now changing some of their behavior too."

As for Christi, she'll be in rehab for a bit longer. Her mom comes to visit her every day. "My mom and I now hang out and really talk," Christi says. "She knows what is going on in my life and I know what's going on with her."

Christi hopes she will never resort to using drugs. "I know that I don't want to," she says, "I feel I am strong enough to say no and get on with my life. But I also know I will definitely try to help them. No one should have to go through what I did."

Karen is still in rehab. She will be at the facility for another month. "Taylor and Christi promised me they will come visit me every day while I'm here. They want to be sure I'll be okay without them. I know I will, but if it wasn't for them, I would never have come this far in such a short time." Karen knows that she still has a while to go before she'll be ready to leave the rehab center. Her parents are very supportive and visit her as often as they can.

"I know I will be going back to the little white house with the perfect little family," Karen says. "But this time, I will be looking forward to it. I want to get back to school and study hard so that I can go on to college. That's very important to me."

The three girls all have the same advice: "Don't do drugs. Don't drink alcohol. You may think that it's an escape, but it's not. You're just running away from your problems."